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THE SOUTH SIDE SOCIAL CLUB
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THE SOUTH SIDE SOCIAL CLUB
THE SOUTH SIDE SOCIAL CLUB was established about 14-15 years ago in the basement of one of the two founding fathers. For years both of their families had been making wine and as time went on the elders were less and less involved. They were sitting at the kitchen table one night having a glass of wine, looked at and almost said at the same time “somebody has to continue this tradition”. When they started there were 4 members making homemade wine.
The process of making wine is a great deal of enjoyment but it also a lot of work. Obviously the cooking part came automatic; when you work you get hungry. As time went on the club moved from a basement to the rear of a construction company building owned by two of the founders. Today the club has a 10 official wine making members as well as invited guests over the season. From when we start pressing the grape in September until the bottling process around Memorial Day we cook a luncheon every Saturday for about 15 to 25 quests. The building has a small kitchen, a wine room and lunch is served in the empty garage on banquette tables.
The lunch usually consists of 5-7 courses, some homemade wine, beer and soft drinks and ultimately about a 3-hour meal, although we start cooking at 8:00 AM. At our Christmas Party and Grand Finally dinner we seat about 100. No offence ladies but, it’s an all men’s cigar smoking wine club so no women allowed. It works out well because all the members and guests chip-in for the cost of each lunch. We have a small commercial kitchen and primarily 2-3 members with previous restaurant experience as well as a guest chef from time to time do the cooking. Our meal nominally includes some antipasti, insulate, zuppa, pasta, some kind of meat or fish, veggies and potato or risotto. In addition, we occasionally donate our services for outside catering for our members, game dinners and non-profit functions, etc.
AH, the wine! Yes, this is how it all started. All our grapes come from small obscure vineyards in the Northern California wine region. We buy 5-6 different types of grape depending on the harvest reports, quality of the crop and yield potential. The grape is tested, tasted and visually scrutinized for freshness; only then do we buy. Our pressing of the grape usually begins within a day or so after we receive shipment to maintain quality and reduce degradation. Crushing of the grape is a long day but important day for us because when you start you have to finish. The grape is crushed with an automatic electric hopper and then stored in 55-gallon drums in our wine room. A hopper is a piece of equipment that crushes the grape and weeds out all the stems. Picture 10-12 guys crushing boxes and boxes of grape, 2-3 guys in the kitchen preparing food and cooking up a storm for them as well as an additional 15-20 quest. It’s a lot of work, but we love it.
The crushed grapes are then watched very closely over the next week or two and constantly tested for sugar content. When it’s ready, it must be pressed at once. Sometimes it luckily lands on the weekend but quite often we run down to the club after a day’s work and do it in the evening. It’s too important; when it’s time to press, it’s time to press. The next procedure is to rack the wine several times during the fermenting process. This is when you pour off all the clearer wine off the top of the storage jugs and toss out all the sediment on the bottom. This process is done several times between the pressing and the bottling. Usually we can start drinking some of the wine around Christmas time even though it is not ready for bottling. We do make some top shelf wine; as a matter of fact, over the years we must have 30-40 trophies from various local homemade wine award dinners. Another thing we do at he club is make our own homemade dried salami and soppressata; about 600 pounds once a year. We did however press over 6000 pounds of grape this year all from an obscure vineyard in Northern California.
THE SOUTH SIDE SOCIAL CLUB has earned the reputation for making some of the finest homemade wine in Southern New England as well as having food as good as you can get it anywhere. It’s a hidden jewel in the rear of an unidentified block building in an obscure part of town with guest admittance by invitation only. There has only two women that have ever joined us for lunch and they both wrote articles on the club; one was a national publication and the other was a local Rhone Island news paper. Mister Bob Duva and his wife Susan. The Duva’s publish the Federal Hill Gazette which is the Italian WHAT’S GOING on and the WHO’S WHO in the Italian community. The SOUTH SIDE SOCIAL CLUB is a strictly men’s cigar smoking winemaking club but it was a pleasure having Susan join us. The Duva’s were nice enough to give us a nice four page write-up including full front page coverage.
Last June we caught the attention o a New York Producer that decided he wanted to some work with us. They are currently filming our entire winemaking season from the buying of the grapes in September to the bottling around Memorial Day. Every two weeks or so the cameraman films our Saturday lunches and pretty much follows us around for the entire weekend; he films from the early morning shopping at the wholesalers, through the cooking, the lunch and the clean-up. Quite often he will also film us where and when we go out to lunch or dinner. There are four main characters in this production with myself being one of them. The show will air on HBO, A&E or the FOOD NETWORK around the end or 2006. If it gets good reviews they want to make a reality show out of it with guest chefs and all.
From what I understand about the FOOD NETWORK is they will take on the show but you must have back-up cookbook. As it turns out I was in the process of doing a cookbook for the club long before this all happened. I am currently up to 275 ready for print recipes out of about 400 and about 65 pages of commentary. The recipes are mostly with a few miscellanies thrown in that I happen to like. The pictures will include the key players with some ancestral history from the old country and some shots of towns and places all over Italy that coincide with our cooking and winemaking. I have been to Italy over 50 times so most of the shots I took myself. As far as the pictures of food I want to put a little twist to it. In general I’m not leaning toward a coffee table cookbook but a working one with product information, wines and winemaking with little down to earth humor thrown in. with respect to food photos there will no fancy $200 place settings but more of the club settings. Most of them will come from film clips of the production so it will tie the book right in. When we show a chicken marsala it is going to be in a 14 inch sauté pan coming out of the kitchen.
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